The Depth/Breadth Tradeoff in Hierarchical Computer Menus
- 1 October 1981
- journal article
- other
- Published by SAGE Publications in Proceedings of the Human Factors Society Annual Meeting
- Vol. 25 (1) , 296-300
- https://doi.org/10.1177/107118138102500179
Abstract
Goal acquisition speed and accuracy were compared for subjects using four different menu configurations of a semantic hierarchy on an interactive computer terminal. Depth (the number of menu levels) varied from one to six, while breadth (the number of choices per menu) varied from two to 64. Goal acquisition time for the four experimental groups produced a U-shaped function with a minimum at the configuration of two levels with eight choices per level. Error data corroborated the acquisition times demonstrating that the fastest conditions also produced the least errors. Optimization of the depth/breadth tradeoff can be an important design consideration in goal acquisition tasks requiring speed and accuracy.Keywords
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